1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal capable of receiving a digital broadcast signal, and in particular a digital broadcast receiving terminal employing both an internal antenna and an external antenna.
2. Description of the Related Art
The above-mentioned external antenna is highly superior to an antenna employed in a conventional digital broadcast receiving terminal on the basis of signal-receiving sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio. However, such an external antenna is generally very large in size as compared to an internal antenna. Due to the large size, the external antenna causes it to be very inconvenient to use a digital broadcast receiving terminal. Accordingly, a conventional digital broadcast receiving terminal uses an external antenna only when it is determined that it is impossible to receive a digital broadcast signal using an internal antenna. With an external antenna, the digital broadcast receiving terminal can receive a digital broadcast signal even in the area where it is impossible to receive a digital broadcast signal using the internal antenna. As such, a modern digital broadcast receiving terminal may be operated either in an internal antenna use mode or an external antenna use mode. However, with a conventional broadcast receiving terminal having the external antenna, even if a user moves to an area where it is unnecessary to use an external antenna, there is no way to inform the user that the external antenna is not needed. Therefore, a problem exists with a conventional broadcast receiving terminal in that the user is inconvenienced by having to use an external antenna even if a broadcasting signal can be sufficiently received by an internal antenna.
Furthermore, when an external antenna is used, it is not required to use an internal antenna because the gain of the external antenna is substantially high as compared with that of the internal antenna. This is because the quality of a received signal required by the digital broadcast receiving terminal can be assured without using a Radio Frequency (RF) unit connected to the internal antenna. Therefore, when the external antenna is used, there is no need to supply power to the RF unit connected to the internal antenna. However, with the conventional digital broadcast receiving terminal there is no way to control power to the RF unit and thus power is unnecessarily consumed.